Historically, beginning with their inception, economic class-based societies have been defined and pervaded by major and minor, open and hidden conflicts. Even in prehistoric times conflicts have often interrupted primitive tribal societies. They have assumed many forms of struggle and organization—military, economic (i.e., commercial competition, speculation, trade wars, economic blockades, boycotts, lockouts and strikes), and political (electoral campaigns, protests, pre-war diplomatic maneuvers and revolutions) or of any combinations of these forms. Whatever forms these conflicts have taken, they have all been mediated through the mental terrain upon which the old ideas, belief systems, public opinions and political wills have been established.
